All I Ever Needed (40 page)

She sighed. It was not much of an exaggeration, she supposed. She had cried out quite loudly. "Do you suppose it might be mistaken for anything save what it was?"

"No. And if they missed it in the cove, I'm sure Mrs. Randolph did not."

Sophie turned her head. "She's here? You heard her come in?"

"Yes," he said. "To both questions."

She glanced at the door to make certain it was closed, though she recognized it was late to be doing so. "This is rather awkward, is it not? I mean, if she heard us, then she must be thinking the most awful things."

For a moment East did not understand; when he took her meaning, he gave a shout of laughter. "She doesn't think we are really brother and sister, Sophie. I would not be the recipient of so many disapproving stares if that were the case."

Sophie tugged on the neckline of her chemise, smoothing it properly into place as she turned on her side. "She stares at you?"

"Disapprovingly." He saw that Sophie was much struck by this, confirming his belief that she had never once noticed the housekeeper's censure. "And she clucks her tongue."

Sophie made the tsking sound three times with her own tongue. "How that must chafe. I think you are not accustomed to being cast in the role of the scoundrel." She fell on her back again and stared at the ceiling. "I wonder if we might depend upon her discretion?"

"I think we can depend on not depending." East sat up and threw his legs over the side of the bed. He applied some effort to making himself presentable, tucking in the loose tails of his shirt and pressing the creases from his waistcoat with his palms. He removed his hopelessly wrinkled neckcloth and buttoned his breeches. Standing, he leaned over the bed and stamped Sophie's rather bemused smile with his kiss. "I will not be gone long."

Although Sophie took him at his word, she was sitting at the table eating cold porridge when he returned. He glanced from her to the bed and back again, his disappointment not entirely feigned. He dropped into the seat opposite her but let his own bowl of porridge remain where it was. "Mrs. Randolph is gone," he said. "I sent her away."

Sophie nodded. "Not to bring the physician, I hope."

"No. She is gone for the day." Before Sophie's hopes were raised, he added, "I have not changed my thinking entirely. It is only a reprieve of sorts. She will return with the physician tomorrow." He watched her composure falter just a bit as a pale pink tide of color washed over her face. As always, Sophie was not as unaffected as her serene countenance would suggest. Her warm honey-colored eyes darted away from his and then returned uncertainly. She was shy of a sudden, and he realized he liked this look of her as much as he did her bold one.

"You have the most splendid eyes," he told her. The compliment had rather a different effect than the one he intended. East was almost set back in his seat when those splendid eyes narrowed skeptically. "I am not flattering you. I have always thought they were excellent in their coloring and directness." This made them slide away again. "And even when they are not direct, I find they have much to recommend them." He reached across the small table and lifted a heavy lock of hair from her shoulder with his fingertips. "They match this exactly. You must have noticed."

Sophie brushed her hair back so that it slipped from his fingers and fell behind her shoulder. "I do not find it at all singular."

"Perhaps because you are not sitting where I am. The view from here is extraordinary."

Discomfited, Sophie dropped her hands to her lap and began making pleats in the loose folds of her chemise. "I am unused to pretty compliments."

East considered this a moment. What Sophie did not say was that she could not judge the sincerity of them. He suspected this was at the heart of her confusion. "Mr. Heath did not remark on your eyes?"

"No."

"Or your hair?"

"No."

"Your lips?" The line of that lush mouth flattened immediately, forcing a grin to Eastlyn's. "Did he never kiss you?"

"No."

"Perhaps it is because your acquaintance was so brief."

"I think it was because he was in love with Miss Sayers."

"Oh, yes, I had forgotten that."

"I don't believe you. You are teasing me to amuse yourself."

"A little now." His eyes slid toward the bed. "And later, a lot."

Sophie felt a surge of heat, not all of which could be seen properly in her face. The centers of her eyes darkened, and between her thighs she was damp. She drew in her lower lip a fraction, setting the tip of her tongue to it.

Watching her, East thought Sophie knew something about teasing, even when she did not set out to do so. "I would have your answer," he said, his voice pitched low and husky. "It occurs to me that you gave me none before."

She could not pretend ignorance. There was only one question of any import between them. "It was not a request that you put before me earlier. It was in every nuance a command."

"And that makes little or no difference to you. You ignore one as well as the other."

Sophie stared at her folded hands for a long moment before she slowly raised her head and faced Eastlyn. There was no lingering amusement in his eyes; they matched hers for gravity of expression. "I do not know how to say yes," she told him quietly. "I know you do not expect romantic notions to enter into this marriage arrangement, but it is no simple thing for me. Perhaps it could be different if I had never come to love you; I could agree to your proposal as coldbloodedly as I agreed to poor Mr. Heath's. The choice of loving you, though, was removed from me at the outset; indeed, it never felt like an act of conscious will. Rather, it was as if you had tapped a wellspring in my heart and left me without any means to dam it."

She took a small breath then, steadying herself. It seemed to her that East was perhaps paler than he had been when she started her speech, but she did not try to interpret what it meant, only observed that it was so. "I do not blame you for it. I do not think you were careless of my feelings, only unaware of them. I trust that you are not the rogue I named you once; you might be cruel to be kind, but I acquit you of being cruel. I think you make it a point to avoid innocents like me for all the reasons that have come to pass." She was moved to smile faintly, recalling something he had confided to her. "You told me you prefer transportation to Van Diemen's Land to partnering a young woman in her first waltz. It is unfortunate that your sense of duty and obligation means you cannot always have your way in such things. It is easy to imagine that more hearts than my own have been attached to you in the course of those steps."

Sophie saw him frown slightly, and she realized she had said something more than she meant to. To distract the course of his thoughts, she quickly pushed her bowl and spoon aside and rested her clasped hands on the table. She meant the posture to show resolve and firmness, not an attitude of pleading or prayer. "I would not have shared my bed with you outside of marriage if I had not loved you. You could have forced me to that pass, but you did not. That
was
a choice I made, and I can still find no reason to regret it."

Eastlyn said, "But it does not change your opinion of marriage."

"It does not change my opinion of a marriage between us."

He pushed his chair away from the table and stood. He would have used his size to intimidate her if he thought it would have done any good. He was considering using his pistol. "For all your protestations of a fine affection for me, I do not understand the distinction you are making."

"It is not a fine affection," she said sharply. "I love you."

East's fingers plowed hard through his hair. "Bloody hell, but you make no sense."

Sophie's chair scraped the floor as she shot to her feet. Her hands folded into fists at her sides; her knuckles whitened. "I have never been moved so near to throttling someone. I should let them kill you, you know, but then what pleasure would there be left for me?"

Eastlyn held his ground while Sophie gladly gave up hers, putting a good distance between them as if she believed her own threat. He watched her widen the part in the window curtains and lean into the glass, pressing her forehead against the pane.

Her shoulders were hunched forward as she hugged herself. He did not think she was crying; she was too angry yet for tears.

He slowly released a carefully held breath. "You have been afraid for me all this long while?"

She answered with a small, jerky nod.

"You might have told me that at any time."

"I did not want to tell you now. Do you think I don't know how little difference it will make? You will dismiss my fears or make light of them. Or you will try to convince me that you can protect yourself. You have experience with the Society of Bishops, after all." Sophie turned away from the window to face him, surprised to see that he had drawn closer. Her voice lowered, but did not soften. "Tremont cannot be persuaded to any action by the removal of his chamber pot. You would have to remove
him."

"Before he tries the same with me?"

"Yes." She searched his face, but his dark eyes had become impenetrable, and his expression yielded none of his thoughts. "If I had told you this when you made your proposal, you would have pressed me harder than you did. You would have wanted to remove me from my cousin's influence and given little thought to your own safety. I left the Park with you because you promised you would not force marriage on me. It occurred to me then that you might lie to Tremont and tell him we planned to marry, but I know now that you did not."

"How can you be certain?"

"If he thought we were married, he would not wait so very long to make me a widow."

East's gaze dropped to Sophie's flat belly. "Tremont is the reason you want a daughter."

"Yes, of course. Our daughter cannot inherit your entailed estate. But if he learns I have had your son, he will use the child to take whatever he wants from your holdings. It will be a bloodletting. Do not think for a moment that your parents can stop him."

"And if we don't marry?"

"Then my child, daughter or son, will be a bastard, and it matters little who the father is. Tremont cannot take money that is never settled on me or my child."

"Another reason you have asked me for nothing."

She nodded. "Just so."

"Bloody hell."

Sophie nodded again.

"Come here," he said. He knew he could have gone to her—there was enough despair in her eyes to make him want to do so—but he marked the fullness of her trust in the steps it would take to bring her to his side.

There was no hesitation. She went willingly because standing in the circle of his embrace was where she wanted to be. She felt his arms close around her back, his hands resting just above the curve of her bottom, and she turned her head and laid her cheek against his shoulder.

East kissed the top of her head. Her hair was silky against his mouth, and she smelled of lavender. "You were right that telling me everything only makes me more determined." He was prepared for her effort to move away, and he did not let her go. Negotiations often required a show of strength to gain an opponent's attention, and Eastlyn thought he might have been slow in demonstrating his. "I understand why you left this explanation unspoken for so long, and I appreciate that your fears are real and that you have acted at every turn to shield me from harm; but it is unfair that you have given me no opportunity to prove to you that I can manage the thing myself. I do not underestimate your cousin, Sophie, but my sense of him as a man of few scruples has much to do with the fact that he was the Society's archbishop."

East turned his head so that he might better see hers. "Why do you think he is capable of murder?"

Sophie's voice held no inflection; she had been made numb to the truth of it three years past. "Because it is how he came by Tremont Park. He is responsible for my father's death."

"You know this for a fact?"

"You
do
find it difficult to credit." Her faint smile was a trifle sad. "I thought you might. You want to think better of him in spite of your words to the contrary."

"You're wrong, Sophie. I find it surprisingly easy to believe. What I want you to tell me is if you know it for a fact."

"You are asking if there is proof. If I saw him with my father at the end."

"That's right. Did you?"

She shook her head. "No. He was with his congregation the day my father died. It was a Sunday morning in April. Abigail was with me. And Harold. Not in Papa's bedchamber, but in the house. They did not want to leave me because we all knew it would be soon. I did not ask them to stay, or even invite them to the Park, but they were there because ownership would move to their side of the family, and they thought they should show this last measure of respect."

When Sophie tried to step back this time, she found that East permitted it. She did not go far; she did not want to. "What do know about my father, East?"

"Little enough beyond the things you have shared." He saw she did not believe him. "There were people who were willing to tell me what they knew of him. Sometimes I listened; most often I did not. If there were things I should know, I supposed I should hear them from you. The gossip is just what you would expect: gaming and drinking, both to excess. I know there were debts. You are my source of the less well known aspects of his character: that he was given to bouts of melancholy, that he never stopped missing your mother, and that he was perhaps a better friend to you than he was a father. He indulged his grief, Sophie, and left you too often to make your own way, and that is the reason I judge him more harshly than you. I know you nursed him in his final years, but I know little about what put him in his bed. I have heard there was an accident and that he never properly recovered, but the nature of the accident is unknown to me."